Why the sublime violence of volcanoes will never lie dormant

A new exhibition shows how scientists have tried to understand the mayhem of volcanoes, and how artists have embraced their sheer terror

Art and science merge in a colossal mushroom cloud of ash in an illustration from William Hamilton’s 1779 supplement to his book Campi Phlegraei. We see a vast plume of white and grey dust hanging high above Mount Vesuvius in broad daylight. Blue sky and sea enclose the eruption in a frozen calm. The cloud suggests the solidity and weight of thousands of tons of incinerated stone, suspended impossibly in the air.

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